Waste migration

Transport processes carry wastes through the subsurface environment and must be considered in a fate assessment if the interaction of partition and transformation processes does not immobilize or alter the hazardous waste. Waste migration can take place either in solution or in solid form (particle migration). 

However, in many cases involving geological materials these normal behavior patterns are not observed. Figures 2-A and 2-B are illustrations of this for Pu ( ) and Cs ( ) ions.. As can be seen in the figures the distributions are neither symmetric (or gaussian) and tend to form a "plume" in the direction of flow. This plume can, of course, lead to higher concentrations than normal at distances downstream from the main body of activity and thus are important to models of waste migration. 

Studies of Nuclear-Waste Migration in Geologic Media," p. 34, M. G. Seitz, P. G. Rickert, S. M. Fried, A. M. Friedman, and M. J. Steindler, Argonne National Laboratory Report ANL-78-8, 1978. 

The disposal of low-level radioactive waste generated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) during the Cold War era has historically involved shallow land burial in unconfined pits and trenches. The lack of physical or chemical barriers to impede waste migration has resulted in the formation of secondary contaminant sources where... 

SIMULATION OF COUPLED THERMAL AND SOLUTE CONCENTRATION EFFECTS ON DENSE RADIOACTIVE WASTE MIGRATION IN DEEP AQUIFERS... 

Waste deposited in landfills undergoes biological, chemical and physical transformations that cause changes in solid, liquid (leachate) and gas phases. As much as 90% of the carbon that is released during the decomposition of organic matter in the waste migrates to landfill gas in the form of CH, COj and various hydrocarbons, whereas only 10% enters the leachate (Huber-Humer, 2007). The complex composition of the gas emitted from landfills and its uncontrolled emission into the atmosphere poses multiple threats and problems at different levels of coverage. 

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